This invention relates to a cooking machine particularly useful for cooking rice cakes, sometimes known as rice wafers, although any suitable product could be cooked using the machine and method according to the invention. The rice cakes are preferably a puffed rice crispbread type product. The invention also relates to a pnematic device suitable for use in such a cooking machine.
Known in the prior art, for example from U.S. Pat. No. 4,328,741, is an automatic machine for making rice cakes which includes a generally cylindrical shaped mould consisting of three components. The three components are a generally cylindrical continuous side wail with open ends, the open ends being occupied by respective reciprocally movable end walls which closely fit within the cylindrical wall. Heating elements are included and used so as to control the temperature within a predetermined operating range. An uncooked rice mixture is introduced into the mould and crushed before cooking. After a predetermined cooking period, the rice cake is allowed to expand as only the top end wall is withdrawn and then the cooked rice cake is ejected.
Although the above-described apparatus works reasonably well, it has been found that there is room for improvement as the rice cakes produced in the machine are not as consistent in quality as is desired.